Bruce Schneier Blasts Politicians, Media

An anonymous reader writes, "In his latest newsletter, security author Bruce Schneier delivered a scathing critique of politicians and the media for promoting fear and ultimately doing exactly what the terrorists want. Citing several cases of false alarms, Schneier writes: 'Our politicians help the terrorists every time they use fear as a campaign tactic. The press helps every time it writes scare stories about the plot and the threat... Our job is to think critically and rationally, and to ignore the cacophony of other interests trying to use terrorism to advance political careers or increase a television show's viewership.' Are the terrorists laughing at us?"

Comments

Machiavelli

[Itchy Rich]

Dissent gets stifled using anti-terror legislation... government fuck-ups get buried beneath terror headlines... people are given an enemy, and a reason to be obedient. Terrorism makes it easy for politicians to get their own way. Considering the mind-bogglingly small impact of terrorism, why wouldn't they want to encourage it?

Re:Machiavelli

[$1uck]

That's down right sinister. I'm not disagreeing (or agreeing) that this is happening. However I believe a sort of Social/Group Darwinism happens in significantly large complex organizations (like governments). Unthinking beauracracies evolve into whats best for the "beast" and not whats best for doing its job. Someone wrote a blog recently about whether the government agencies are grossly incomptent or "divinely comptent conspiracies" (not sure the quote is precise but its close enough). I prefer to think of it as both.

Where's the frontier where one can escape the thumb of large business and large government?

Re:Machiavelli

[IAmTheDave]

Where's the frontier where one can escape the thumb of large business and large government?

Buy an island. Or maybe move to SeaLand.

As long as there is money, there will be greed and corruption. As long as there are humans, there will be a desire for power and control. Since the human race currently reigns the planet, and international cooperation is almost entirely based on money, all four (greed, corruption, power, and control) exist.

They also all feed off of eachother. Greed breeds a desire for power and money. Greedy desire for money breeds corruption. Corrupt people with reems of money can buy control and power.

What's interesting is that despite greed, and the desire for ultimate control, said corrupt greedy controling individuals DO ban together - if pushing forward the collective enhances the individual. So as corruption grows inside of a large group, it's bound to effect (often in a positive money sense) the individual seeking said money and power. As a group becomes more powerful, the individual gains more power inside the group, which gives the group and individual more control.

It's vicious, rampant, and all-too-difficult to keep in check.

So the idealism held by a few true blue men (the founding fathers) was bound to fail, as is any new government set up today. (Although, I should point out, or at least not pretend to deny, that almost all the important founding fathers were all men who held positions of power and control in said new government, and were all pretty well off financially too. Best way to gain control of a country? Make one up.)

It's the crux of why all governments fail - and the crux of why, despite how perfect it looks on paper, communism is a dismal failure as well.

The democracy... sorry... republic... in which we live (US) is, to many, the best that we have come up with as a species thus far. To which side it leans can be debated forever, and whether or not more socialism is a good thing is also debatable. But we're far from a perfect society, and I dare say that we won't see one... ever.

Or, at least not as long as greed, power, corruption, and money are in the equation.

Re:Machiavelli

[russ1337]

Its 'mutualism symbiosis' at its best. It is much like the Movie stars and the Paparazzi - the movie stars loath the Paparazzi, but need the publicity they give them; and the paparazzi need the movie stars to stay employed.

Politicians NEED the terrorist threats to push through legislation giving themselves more power. (If there was no threat, there would be no Patriot Act). They politicians may not like them, but it is the terrorists that enable the politicians. (Here is the redundant bit, but it proves the point:) When the politicians use the terrorist threats to gain said power, they are spreading the word of the terrorist, giving them more power..... thus fueling the terrorists ability to enable fear, and so on....

Re:Machiavelli

[Hijacked Public]

You'd have to buy an island that no one wants. And I think SeaLand burned half to the ground and isn't going to be able to resurrect itself without help, which means some government or corporation somewhere is going to earn themselves some leverage by providing it.

The important thing to remember is that things aren't the way there are simply because humanity willed it so. Our true blue, slave owning, whore fucking founding fathers didn't just get to draw up a consitution and the country birthed out of that and everybody went around respecting everyone. They ordered thousands and thousands of common people to march face first into the outstretched bayonets of our enemies. When all the boides were finally piled up and counted, more of their guys were killed than our guys, so we could call this place our own and go back to being eaten alive by bears and half starving to death until we recuperated enough strength to go on a murderous genocidal rampage against the people who were here when we arrived.

So no, buying an island won't do. You'll need a massive economy to produce airplanes and rifles and metal hats to ward off all your bloodthirsty neighbors. You'll then need to develop a culture that resists encroachment, otherwise you'll wake up one day and there will be shops on every corner selling shitty hamburgers and piping your money back across your borders, so that the hamburger vendor's homeland can pay for more machine guns to open up more markets to peddle hamburgers in so they can pay for more machine guns.

And if you discover gold or copper or oil or anything else of any conceivable value on your island, even sand, shoot yourself in the face in preemptive capitulation because someone will have already developed a cleverly named campaign, "Operation Friendly Help" or the like, that involves a boat the size of Rhode Island parking 15 miles off your shore and hurling bombs at you continuously for months on end.

Thing are looking pretty bleak for sovereignity in general.

Re:Machiavelli

[gfxguy]

I like the Paparazzi analogy... the problem is that 50 years ago celebrities loved it, but then the paparazzi grew more and more intrusive and most of them simply became parasites feeding off the celebrity...

The thing about terrorism is we didn't like it, but based on our reactions from the early eighties up until the Bush administration, we simply ignored it.

Everybody complains about the government taking too much power; but if it wasn't taking power one way, it'd be taking power another way (universal health care, for example, and social security and so forth - these government programs are ALL used as tools for politicians, they were created to get votes, and they are used to keep votes). The only party that would actually REDUCE the size and power of government (the Libertarians) are genereally laughed out of the elections, even though it seems to be what most people want. And no, I'm not a Libertarian, I'm a libertarian... and believe me, the left wants to take away your freedoms as much as the right does.

Re:Machiavelli

[radtea]

Politicians NEED the terrorist threats to push through legislation giving themselves more power.

Nothing illustrates this better than George W. Bush's citing Osama bin Laden's belief that "we are engaged in a third world war" to bolster his (Bush's) claims that the U.S. government needs to be able to ride roughshod over the fundamental liberties Americans have fought and died for over centuries.

When I heard Bush say that it suddenly made perfect sense: two sides, both of whom have an interest in a war that is by definition practically unwinnable. And the leader of the most powerful nation on Earth claiming the blitherings of a man hiding in a cave constitute a creditable attack on our world-spanning civilization. Neither is interested in victory. Both are interested in pervasive warfare and fear. That is what secures their own power-base.

It is time for the rest of us to say we are tired of this make-believe war that is only in the interests of the nutters who want to lead it. Ordinary police work has been and continues to be an effective tool for fighting the minor threat that terrorism presents. We know terrorism is a minor threat because major threats actually kill people, whereas death by terrorism was negligable in 2001, much less 2006.

Ordinary police work, within the strong framework of rights and liberties that is fundamental to Anglo-American law, and not "security theatre", is what has kept us safe for decades. And even depending on ordinary police work did mean we were a little less safe, I personally am willing to trade a little bit of security in favour of liberty for myself, my compatriots, and my children.

Re:Machiavelli

[generalphilips]

I've never heard a more idiotic comment that was hoping so badly to sound intelligent. You obviously don't live in New York. I do. The impact of 9/11 was decidedly not small. Have you even read Machiavelli? Have you even read Bruce Schneier's blog?

Re:Machiavelli

[tbannist]

Unthinking nationalism is another way in which the U.S. controls it's citizens. Americans need to really think about by what measures the U.S. is "the best we have come up with as a species thus far". For most of those measures you'll find other countries ahead of you. The Japanese are healthier, the French get more action, the Venezualans are prettier, Denmark is happier, Luxembourg is richer, Finland is clearner, Canada is more libertarian, more educated and has a higher quality of life, China has more people, Russia is bigger, and Kuwait is safer.

The U.S. does have the largest christian population, one of the highest teenage pregnancy rates, one of the highest divorce rates, one of the highest prison population rates, but that's nothing to be proud of.

Re:Machiavelli

[Hijacked Public]

Sure, but the Japanese whack themselves out at a higher rate. The French have some serious unemployment issues to deal with. Venezuelans have the same problem, coupled with polluting every natural resource they have as a byproduct of their relentless drive to cut down every tree in the country.

And it goes one and on.

There are balances to be stuck everywhere, and the US does as well as anyone else, better in most cases. And although arguing over who is best is obviously pointless, nationalism is just part of the human condition. Is is natural for humans to want their particular group to be the best, whether the group is a nation or a skin color or a religion or a sports team.

Re:Machiavelli

[drew]

OK, so you live in New York City. So do 8 million other people (including several close friends of mine when the attacks happened). 288 million Americans do not live in New York city. I'm going to repeat what I said yesterday in response do a different conversation.

How many Americans have died in terrorist attacks in the last 5 years (plus three^Wfour days)?
How many Americans die every month in automobile accidents?

I'm not trying to invalidate your feelings or those of anyone else who was directly affected by the September 11th attacks, and I am not trying to claim that it wasn't a terrible moment in our nation's history. But it has been blown terribly out of proportion by our government and the media for their own benefit, whether intentionally or not.

Regarding the question in the orignal post ("Are the terrorists laughing at us?") I couldn't help but be just a little bit amused at Bin Laden's tape that he released before the last election, making fun of how easy it was to goad President Bush in particular and Americans in general into fighting Al Qaeda on their terms. Of course his criticism of George Bush had the predictable effect of a last minute increase in support for the incumbent president. The irony is almost unbelievable- by telling us exactly what he thought, he was able to talk his sworn enemies into playing right into his hands. If I found it amusing (if sad), I can only imagine how it looks from the other side.

Re:Machiavelli

[BVis]

BS. Where exactly is this happening? The web, TV, and radio are dripping with dissent and nonsense. There are regular demonstrations.

First, you say "dripping with dissent and nonsense", which trivializes the conversation. Second, the "regular demonstrations" you speak of are "regularly" removed (occasionally forcibly) so as to negate their impact. The right to free speech and redress of grievances apparently isn't as important as protecting your agenda.

government fuck-ups get buried beneath terror headlines...

Instead of other headlines? Whoop.

I'd agree with you there, all things being equal. However, things are not equal. How many times has the "terror alert" been raised without any specifics whatsoever regarding the "threat"?

Obedient? HOW! Did all crime stop? Did everybody start paying their taxes? Is the government handing out careers? More vague generalities and nonsense.

You're missing the point of the GP. This administration has a lot invested in keeping people afraid. Scared people are easier to manipulate. The best example of this "obedience" is the fact that when the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program was revealed, there weren't riots in the streets. Another example might be the pervasiveness of the "If you haven't done anything wrong, then you don't have anything to worry about" attitude of the average citizen. Also, nobody's marched on Washington demanding immediate presidential impeachment hearings for what could be interpreted as treasonous acts by this administration. (I'm thinking specifically of the Plame scandal.)

9/11 did $100,000,000,000 in damage to the US economy and killed 3,000 people. Chump change? If it happened every year? Every month? Al Qaeda has a goal of killing 4,000,000 Americans. Do you think it is better to prevent that, or to clean up the mess?

I think it's better to remember what makes us Americans. If we give up the basic rights that are set forth in the Constitution, we're no longer Americans. Al Qaeda would have succeeded in destroying 300,000,000 Americans in that case. You can't put a price tag on a national identity. If I personally were faced with the choice between giving up my rights as an American and death.. I'd die. Can you say the same? Al Qaeda's operatives are willing to die for their cause, why aren't we? (Oh, that's right, we have poor people to do it for us. Silly me.)

The impact in the US is only small because we are protecting ourselves, or have been lucky.

Please. Have you seen any of the so-called "protective measures" that have been implemented since 9/11? All they've done is restrict the rights of innocents by the millions in order to catch a handfull of "detainees" who may or may not be guilty of acts of terrorism. Security at our borders is still a joke, and we also came very close to allowing control of our busiest container ship ports to an Arab state-based country! I would say the more likely options there are "we've been lucky" or "they haven't done anything."

Al Qaeda and its affiliates are killing people by the hundreds in other places.

As are we.

Re:Machiavelli

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

There are balances to be stuck everywhere, and the US does as well as anyone else, better in most cases.

What is the criteria for success here? Happiness of the people is about as close as I can come to providing a real criteria, and the US is mediocre in that regard. There are certainly countries where the people are happier, maybe we should look at the balances they chose?

Re:Machiavelli

[theStorminMormon]

I'm glad you got a +5 Insightful. We'd hate for people to have to actually read an article before responding to it. Most Slashdot posters operate by a pretty simple switch statement;

if (gotfirstpost == true)
          makestupidfristpostjoke()
else
    Case (topic = terrorism)
          Bush is evil! America is evil! Terrorism is just an excuse to take our rights!
    Case (topic = MS)
          Down with the evil empire! M$ is the great, white Satan!
    Case (topic = linux) ...
end else

Having actually read the article, I thought I'd talk about that. And I find that the contention that terrorist attacks are simply a means to an end, and that the end is terrorism, is outright stupid. You'd think someone concentrating on separating means from ends would be smart enough to follow the chain all the way. Terrorism itself is a means to an end. Let's keep this discussion in perspective. The ultimate goal is not to make airline passengers wet themselves, it's to bring down the American/Western Empire and instate a medieval religious empire founded on some perverse version of Islam.

If you focus on the corruption of US politics to the exclusion of that real threat, you're ignoring the rock. If you focus on so-called "islamo-fascism" and ignore the very real blights in US/Western politics and culture, you're ignoring the hard place. You have to keep your eye on both (a skill radicals from either side are notoriously deficient with.)

In addition, if you treat "terror" as the ultimate measure of the success of terrorism, then why not simply instate severe censorship? If the ultimate goal is to prevent terror - then just ban any reporting about terrorism. That's pretty simple isn't? Saying that the main objective of this fight is to not get scared is like saying that if you have to fight a grizzly bear, the only thing to worry about is not getting eaten. Not panicking is a great idea, but you might want to also figure out how to avoid getting eaten.

Obviously terror isn't the ultimate measure of this conflict. I don't want to be a US citizen living in safety without any fear if that means I've lost the liberties that made America America. And that's exactly what this article - implicitly - advocates.

The reason radicals like to fixate on one end of the spectrum or the other is simple: it makes the problem easy. Trying to figure out how to balance safety concerns and civil liberties, idealism and realism, is difficult. It doesn't lend itself to grand rhetoric, dramatic action, and so on. It's easy to die for a cause if you really believe in that cause, it's harder to actually find a cause that you can rationally support and continue to muddle through your life supporting that cause without the convenience of a world view that bestows black-and-white contours to your environment.

If you ask me, the real danger isn't terror. It's not civil liberties either. It's becoming what we face. And I don't mean we're all in danger of becoming radical Islamic fundamentalists. I mean there is a very real danger that the stressfulness and ambiguity of the present conflict will lead increasingly large numbers of Americans to radicilize. To seek emotional and mental respite from complexity by turning a blind eye to either the rock, or to the hard place.

That is the danger that we face. Because in reality we are between a rock and a hard place, and the only way to see this true is to keep one eye on both.

-stormin

Re:Machiavelli

[TheWizardOfCheese]

As long as there is money, there will be greed and corruption. As long as there are humans, there will be a desire for power and control.

So what? As long as there are humans, there will be love, gratitude, kindness, and self-sacrifice. You don't even need the humans; you can observe all of these behaviours in animals too. Any philosophy that tries to pretend that humans have no "good" attributes is just as nutty as a philosophy such as communism that tries to pretend they have no bad ones.

But we're far from a perfect society, and I dare say that we won't see one... ever.

Well, of course not! But that's hardly the point. Making things worse is easy, making them perfect is impossible. But just making them better is not impossible, even if it's hard work. At this point, it would be progress just to stop making things worse.

Re:Machiavelli

[n00854180t]

About time someone said this. Seconded. The victim attitude is pathetic and ridiculous. More people died in car accidents in two weeks following the "terrorist" attack than in the actual attack. The impact of terrorists on citizens is so absolutely minor when compared with the millions of other ways you could conceivably die NOT involving terrorists. It's far more likely to trip and break your neck/back or get run over by a car than it is to be attacked by something as nebulous and insubstantial as "terrorists". People that allow themselves to be frightened and herded like sheep over something this riduclously minor do not deserve to live in a country called "the home of the brave". And for all the trolls that undoubtedly will call me a "liberal" (since they apparently don't know how to make any logical arguments), I am not, was a former military servicemember and indeed hold very dear the TRUE ideals of the country (personal liberty and freedom, not the oppressive fear mongering garbage that so many cowardly people want).

Possibly.

[FatSean]

I mean, remember the ban on LIQUIDS and GELS on US aircraft? Despite all the improvised explosives experts stating how freakin' hard it would be to succssfully hide and then deploy explosives packaged in a tube of hair gel or other consumer packing?

Yeah, they're probably laughing. As we slowly give up our freedoms and rights bit by bit for some safety that nobody can prove we actually have.

I can quantify the infringements on my rights and freedom...can you quantify how much safer we are?

Re:Possibly.

[ResidntGeek]

can you quantify how much safer we are?

Yes. Every infringement you can quantify is another warm fuzzy feeling among the masses. Since fear is about the only thing they're in danger of from terrorism, they're safer.

Really?

[AricC]

Quote: Our job is to think critically and rationally... Isn't this an oxymoron for the media and government?

Re:Really?

[jc42]

Quote: Our job is to think critically and rationally... Isn't this an oxymoron for the media and government?

Perhaps for the politicians. But not for security analysts like Bruce, or for the many people with security-related jobs inside the government.

And it shouldn't be for a gang of high-tech "nerds" like us. Instead of the usual political flameage, we should be behaving like the geeks we claim to be. We should be discussing how we can use our high tech to expose and interfere with both the terrorists and the politicians who are trying to take advantage of it and push us back into authoritarian societies with them in charge.

With the Internet, we have the best tool yet for tracking and exposing the people like bin Laden, Bush and Blair (and Cheney and Rumsfeld and ...). It's a tool that can't be controlled from the top nearly as easily as the centrally-managed mass media. We should be using our expertise with this tool to get the details of their shenanigans into the minds of the general population.

The growing importance of the political blogs is a good sign. But they're mostly journalist types; they really could use the help of us techie nerd types to develop tools for exposing the political and religious types, and for blocking their attempts to control our communications.

So get to work out there. For a few fun reads on the topic, google for "sousveillance".

refused to be terrorized

[farker haiku]

The surest defense against terrorism is to refuse to be terrorized. Our job is to recognize that terrorism is just one of the risks we face, and not a particularly common one at that. And our job is to fight those politicians who use fear as an excuse to take away our liberties and promote security theater that wastes money and doesn't make us any safer.

I'm more afraid of the politicians than I am of the terrorists. I can't refuse to be terrorized by them, however.

Are the terrorists laughing at us?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are the terrorists laughing at us? Yes they are. 9/11 was a tragedy but it killed only few thousands, what happened after (and its not over yet) killed freedoms of entire nation. By far the most damaging was what 'happened after'.

Re:Are the terrorists laughing at us?

[Dobeln]

"I'd say we are losing the freedom of speech (try speaking out against Bush and you are labelled pro-terrorist and possibly monitored)"

Last time I looked, you had to join a queue to "speak out against Bush", and that was just the line for Hollywooders.

"We are losing the 4th amendment (they can see who you are calling, record calls to foreign countries, and if you are suspected of being a terrorist can haul you off even if you are an American to undisclosed locations and torture you)"

Probably the strongest claim, but a claim with extremely marginal impact, unless you happen to be that poor guy who went off to Afghanistan to partake in peaceful Islamic study in Kabul, only to be sold to the Americans by the local warlord for no reason apart from Greed. Or something.

"And our president acts like an emperor or king instead of our elected prsident, ordering congess to pass his legislation so the cia can continue to torture people."

If he was a king he obviously wouldn't need congress to authorize it.

But the problem is:

[Anonymous Coward]

When the bad guys pull off an attack and kill a lot of people, we demand that the government "share more information with us." When the bad guys don't pull off such an attack for a few years and all we have is warnings, we demand that the government "stop trying to scare us." We can't have it both ways.

Frankly, hearing about plots and arrests and suspects every week doesn't scare me. Just the opposite. It makes me feel like at least somebody's still doing their goddamned job. Maybe that's false security, but I'll take it. It's better than the alternative of burying our heads in the sand and pretending there are no bad guys, as Schneier evidently suggests.

Re:But the problem is:

[Anonymous Coward]

Taking false security IS burying your head in the sand.

Re:But the problem is:

[gfxguy]

It's not "false" when they capture 20 people with weapons, plane tickets, and plans.

Are you saying you'd rather not hear about that story?

Are we safer? It's impossible to say, but while I have problems with the Bush administration pushing it's limits, we haven't lost anything I'd consider an "essential" liberty (funny how a lot of people ignore that word from the quote).

On the other hand, I also have problems with the left wing appeasers and the media who show terrorist propoganda (like the "Pallywood" type videos) over and over again, and talk about daily body counts without talking about the daily progress). You may say the terrorists like that they have created a state of fear, but they also like the left wing and the media blaming their own government for creating it instead of merely propogating it.

Re:But the problem is:

[tclark]

You mean those British guys with no plane tickets, no passports, and no workable plan? Thank God we got those bastards!

Then again, even though those guys did not have a way to make a workable bomb, they did manage to get my three year old daughter frisked and her lip gloss confiscated when we flew recently.

Did we win this one?

Naive

[October_30th]

He's naive if he thinks that the politicians don't realize that. Fear mongering serves politicians' interests as well -- especially if you'd like to exert more control over the public.

The terrorists don't care about that

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Here's what the terrorists care about:

1) they don't want the US to have such economic and political power over their countries
2) they are pretty miffed that the US supports Israel
3) some of them want Islam to be the dominant religion all over the world
4) they don't like the US propping up regimes that suppress their brand of religion
5) they don't like the US propping up regimes that treat their citizens inhumanely
6) they want to be taken seriously
7) they want to act on equal terms with the West

They don't care whether or not we are squandering our freedoms. That is a cop-out and jingoism that makes it seem like there are all these external forces that are causing us to give up our freedoms. It's a way of appealing to our nationalist nature instead of our patriotic nature.

We are losing our freedoms because we are letting it happen. Period. This has nothing to do with terrorism or terrorist wishes except that politicians on both sides use appeals to our emotions to take those freedoms away on the one hand and to lamely protest their usurpation on the other.

I have no analogy for this. It doesn't need one. So why do all these pundits keep spouting these hackneyed bad analogies? Because they don't think you're any smarter than that.

I think you're smart enough to see through it. It is my fervent hope that we (the true intellectual elite) can move this country forward without jingoism and without nationalism, racism, and religious intolerance.

Re:The terrorists don't care about that

[cp.tar]

without nationalism, you don't have a country to move forward anymore.

Instead, you have a world to move forward.

Then again, who cares about the filthy foreigners, right?

Re:The terrorists don't care about that

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting, I would add that one has to keep in mind that terrorism is usually an act of desperation. Terrorists are induced into thinking that there is a supreme good (stop Israel, stop US, independence from UK or Spain, etc.) and that it is unrealisable by any other means.

One thing confuses me, though. You claim we have a "nationalist" nature and a "patriotic" nature. And that the first is bad, while the second is good. Can you explain what is the diference, please?

Re:How Is This News For Nerds??!!!!!!

[kfg]

. . .when did slashdot start covering terrorism issues? This isn't even close to news for nerds, or my rights online.

Somebody hasn't been paying attention.

KFG

Just Remember ......

[darkonc]

The tobacco industry kills more people in a week than Terrorism did in all of 2001 (including 9/11).

But you don't see George Bush launching cruise missile attacks at the headquarters of RJ Reynolds.

Ah, right... They make massive political donations, and buy gobs of advertising.

Re:Just Remember ......

[freedom_india]

So to twist your analogy, if Laden were to have made a $50 million donation to campaign, would Bush have "declared" the plane crashes as pilot errors?

Come on seriously????

Your analogy is flawed and not only wrong, but abhorrent.

You smoke cigars by Choice. No one is holding a box cutter to your throat and forcing you to buy a pack of Camels...

You chose death over life... then you DO deserve it.

I hate all this millions of settlements against tobacco companies now.

When the surgeons and doctors were shouting hoarse in 1970s, people ignored them as fools and continued smoking.. and now they sue the companies for supplying them in first place.

Wha...whaaaaat?

[Lumpy]

From the article... "Our job is to think critically and rationally, and to ignore the cacophony of other interests trying to use terrorism to advance political careers or increase a television show's viewership.'"

what rock has this guy been under? I have never EVER met a journalist that was not out to further themselves at the expense of others. Every interview I have given or was with a friend or co-worker that was interviewed had their words rearranged and mis-quoted to "crank up" the drama.

Journalism has been pretty scummy for a long time, I guess that comes from the fact that if it's not sensational it does not get published.

Obviously

[retrosteve]

What surprises me is that more people aren't speaking up like Schneier. It seems to me that the role of the press and politicians in promoting terror is very much like that of oxygen and fuel in promoting fire.

If you don't feed the spark, it goes out.

If you doubt this, look at other, more important issues (affecting much more than a few thousand people) that routinely die out in the press because they're ignored.

Not to hijack the thread, I'll give a tiny sample, and ask politely that you don't reply to the examples, just to the general principle

* Voting machine irregularities and bad faith at Diebold
* Retraction of whistleblower protections in the US Federal Government
* Increasing exemptions to the US FOIA
* FCC regulation changes making it possible for 2 media giants to completely control any given local market.

The impact of these little stories is far more interesting than which 10 or 100 people will be killed by a terrorist attack someday. As someone just recently put it, more people are killed every year by peanut allergies than by global terrorism.

The War on Peanuts awaits.

Are the terrorists laughing at us?

[haeger]

Hell yes.
As a liberal (no, not the redefined american meaning*) I cry a little every day. People call for harsher punishment, more control and less freedom for the individual. So yes, the terrorists and the gorvernment are laughing at us, in unison. They use and need each other to control us, and they are succeeding at it.

.haeger

(*) Redefined as americans redefined football to mean a game where you use your hands to play with a ball.

He has a point...perhaps everyone is missing it.

[JasonBee]

It's not that we're aiding and abetting the terrorist's fear mongering agenda by spreading fear. Perhaps he's saying that the spread of fear is totally intended, and that the effect has been welcomed...although not by most of society. Fear is control. It's also a great method of cover in case we start questioning things.

The reason the fear tactic keeps getting brought up is because there is something to be gained by keeping everyone fearful. The trick is to follow that intent and then maybe we can clearly see where we're being taken.

Don't feed the troll

[vrtladept]

We have followed this advice in USENET for quite some time. Don't feed the troll, it's what they want. (Terrorists are just real world trolls if you think about it)

Terrorism no longer needs to be physical...

[Bones3D_mac]

Instead, those involved have simply left us so messed up in the head that we end up terrorizing ourselves. We've become obsessed with finding an enemy we can't see, turning over every rock on the ground, just in case. We see monsters in our closets and under our beds, when they're really nothing more than shadows that make us feel a little uneasy in the dark.

The best way the terrorists can win, is to simply not show up ever again. As long as there is no closure... no justification for our own irrational behavior, we'll continue to degrade ourselves until there is nothing left to defend.

People just need to get over it and accept that they can be wrong. The terrorists got the best of us, and our instinct is to take on a "never again" attitude. Until we lose this mindset, we'll just continue to scare ourselves into submission.

Re:Repeat often

[Jack Sombra]

I fly internationally about 4 times a year (US-UK routes) and i still agree with that statement. Some security is common sence, like locked cockpit doors and no obvious wep's (inconceivable for anyone in Europe that these were not enforced in the US before 9/11) but there is a huge difference between common sence security and what pass's for "security" these days, especially as all these extra measures don't really add any extra security, just a load of aggrovation for 10's of millions of people

Godwinned.

[everett]

The Islamofascists have declared that they want Western Civilization wiped from the face of the earth. I take them at their word.

It may just be me, but never in any news report have I ever heard presented the rough size of these groups. For all I know Hezbollah is 50 crazies that want to launch rockets at Israel because 3000 years ago someone stole a goat. I think the biggest tactic our government employs is overstating the number of people that wish us harm. It's very easy to just assume that everyone hates you, and then you get the nice American response of "kill 'em all, let G-d sort them out."

But there have always been crazy people, they have always sought eachother out, and they have always caused harm. Why are we fighting this war with guns, when clearly it could be won with education. Cultural intolerance is a very familiar and very old beast, and genocide isn't the answer to what amounts to overblown racism. I imagine these "Islamofacist" groups really aren't any different than the "Hitler Youth" or "Shultzstaffel" of 60 years ago, and they are motivated by the same thing, they feel they're making a positive change in their condition. It can be argued differently I'm sure, but people that have success and are happy generally don't go around killing other people. Maybe if we fixed the problems of poverty and extreme wealth disparity (for example compare the Saudi royal family to the average working person in Saudi Arabia) then maybe we can all get along.

There are muslims that live and work and have families in America, so America can't possibly be so counter-Islam that having a society similar to ours (or even to the one that has developed in India in areas where America is outsourced) would be impossible because of their faith. A few radicals listening to a misinterpreted book, being told to do things by a misguided leader because they're poor and feel we're trying to destroy them and their way of life, because we support a nation that took the land they lived on.

I guess the point is don't just assume that they're doing all this because they hate you, they hate how they're living.

Pussies

[drooling-dog]

Those who would give up freedom in exchange for security, deserve neither.

Yet it's amazing how often those of us who think this way get called "pussies" or worse by conservatives who themselves are hiding under their beds trembling in fear, begging Daddy Government to please take all of our rights and liberties if that's what it takes to keep the Boogie Man at bay for one more night.

Makes you wonder who the real "pussies" are...

Re:Pussies

[gfxguy]

That's a load of crap. I'm mostly conservative and come from a family of conservatives and have a lot of conservative friends, and we all agree with that quote and more.

Once again, most people agree on the problem, but merely have different ways to approach it. Can you tell me what essential liberties YOU have lost since 9/11?

Now, I have actually heard with my own ears some conservative pundit say something like "isn't it worth it to just give up a little bit of one of your constitutional rights if it ensures your safety?" And I, and everyone within earshot, said "NO!".

The "real pussies" are those who want to roll over and pretend nothing happened, pretend it's a law enforcement problem, complain that people fighting for our enemies are not getting the rights guaranteed by the constitution for U.S. citizens.

This guy is right: politicians and terrorists ARE working together, but if he's got a valid complaint against conservatives, there's a MUCH more valid complaint against liberals and the media.

Re:Pussies

[Skye16]

There's rolling over and pretending nothing happened, and there's running around like a fucking moron screaming the sky is falling every other day.

Honestly, in the giant scheme of things, I don't fucking care about 9/11, I don't fucking care about the two towers, and I don't fucking care about the pentagon. A few thousand people died in a country of about three hundred million. Whoopdifuckingdoo. About 460 thousand people died of heart attacks in 1998 - where the fuck is our War on Candy Bars and Whoppers, huh?

It was a rhetorical question; don't bother answering it. Obviously you try to stop terrorists, just as you try to stop anything that kills people. But we're more worried about a bomb on a subway than we are of dying in a car crash because some jackass is drunk driving. As if that bomb is going to kill you any more dead than an idiot in a pickup truck. It's fucking retarded.

We've lost any and all sense of context with this whole "War on Terror" bullshit. I'm not saying Democrats have the answer, but I know for sure that Republicans don't. To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure anyone in a government position does. All-in-all, I find them uniquely suited to be completely incapable of figuring out how best to deal with this. But when given a choice between an asshole dropping bombs and an asshole banging an intern and not doing much of anything else, I'd rather have the latter.

The real sad thing is all I really want is a viable choice. You know, someone who isn't a complete tool. (Note: Don't even bother babbling about the Green Party or the Libertarian Party. I've scoped both of them out. They're just as bad - just in different ways. Think of the differences between giant logs of poop and green mushy piles of poop. No matter how you look at it, you're still shit.)

Re:Pussies

[teamhasnoi]

So, how does it feel to have lost control of your party and the ideals that it used to stand for?

You have the biggest government in the world, that is the most in debt, and violating more of the constitution than ever before.

How's that 'conservative', or Republican?

It sounds like you're hiding your head in the sand, blaming the problems of your party on anything that disagrees with what's actually happening in your effort to deny that Republicans in office have completly lost their ideals.

In regards to the liberties I've lost personally? None. My life is exactly the way it was before. I don't fly, protest, haven't been subject to 4th amendment violating nonsense (that I know of -ha! ;), haven't been tortured etc.

It's not the fact that none of *my* liberties have been infringed. It's the fact that many others have - free speech zones are not free, airport security unlawfully detains people, phones are being tapped with no warrants, the Patriot act is being abused to go after anyone. I'd link to sources but you won't read them - it's all the liberal media who's reporting it.

As you're conservative, any liberties lost by any American should be paining you greatly. Have you examined your beliefs to see where they've changed?

Re:Repeat often

[smidget2k4]

Secret military tribunals make it safer for you to fly?

Abandonment of due process for American citizens makes it safer for you to fly?

Airports that lack bomb detecting machines or only have one for the entire airport, lax security checks help you fly safer? It has been shown time and time again that airports, sea ports, trains and homeland security in general are only marginally safer or not safer at all. Tests have been done testing security, and many have failed, allowing weapons or shoe bombs or whatnot onto planes.

The administration is really good at passing hard hitting, rights reducing legislation and then not backing it up with nearly enough money to make it effective. However, because they don't let the Democrats table ANY of their terror security bills, they can call themselves tough on security and the Democrats weak, because they didn't pass any terror legislation!

Does partisan hackery really make it safer for you to fly? I think not.

Not necessarily

[Opportunist]

At least not directly (i.e. politicians and terrorists plotting together for the next big stunt), but terrorist attacks further the goals of both groups. Terrorists want to spread terror (hence the name) and get "revenge" on those who they deem as the enemy, spread fear and force us to invest into security, thus weaken our economy because we can't spend on other things that we'd need.

Politicians get the agreement on otherwise unpopular restrictions on civil liberties and freedom, in other words, control.

It's a win-win situation. With us as the loosers.

Re:Not necessarily

[Opportunist]

I asked the same question at the same day: Who benefits from it?

Seriously, when I'd do a terrorist stunt, I'd do something small. And, for crying out loud, I would NOT attack military sites, and certainly not the Pentagon! The towers on the other hand were too big for a terrorist target. Hell, that thing is a landmark! Not some embassy. But let's imagine I want to hit a landmark, a symbol of America's freedom. Why the towers? Know what I'd blow up? The Statue of Liberty. THE key symbol that almost everyone who immigrated into the US from Europe saw as the first token of the "new world", their symbol of a new hope and freedom. That would've been a MUCH more serious blow to the hearts of many US citizens.

But the towers? Nah. They'll eventually become an albatross for the US anyway. How do you get rid of them when they become too old to be inhabited? Can't blow them up, can't crack them down, they would have been two very expensive pieces of scrap that you simply can't get rid of.

Re:Repeat often

[Opportunist]

Be reasonable.

Consider how many flights take off daily. Now compare that to the flights that get blown up by terrorists (include those that were allegedly foiled, to at least get more than THREE in the last 5 years).

And now answer me why you still cross the road without first making your will. Your chances to die are so incredibly higher that you should be afraid to even dare thinking of crossing roads. And we even allow our children to do that! Would someone PLEASE think of the children?

Re:How Is This News For Nerds??!!!!!!

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

What happened to those days?

September 11th.

To give a more complete answer to your rant, terrorism related, or rather "anti"-terrorism related news has become news for nerds. As technicially competant educated people, with not a small sprinkling of intellectual, Slashdotters are more likely to be aware of and engaged in the civil liberties debate, especially when it concerns technology being used to "save us".

1984 crops up in discussions a lot. That's because a lot of people on these boards have actually read the book. There's not a lot of internet forums you can say that about. Slashdotters are interested in what is happening to free society in the wake of the twin towers' collapse, even if you are not. To cap it all off, Bruce Schneier is a computer security super geek. His words carry weight.

As an aside, I'm willing to bet that a big factor in Slashdotters interest and in general opposition to anti-terrorism legislation, is the fact that many here had a hard time in secondary education and would rather not be stamped on again in the emerging neo-facist society. Once you've tasted the lash, you won't be so eager for flogging as others.

Three questions for you

[benhocking]

1. How many Americans died from terrorist attacks in 2001?
2. How many Americans died from natural disasters in 2001?
3. Where did the government spend more money keeping us safe?

If you want some help answering these questions, see this article.

I'm not trying to lessen the seriousness of 9/11. It was a very serious attack that demanded our attention. However, there are lots of other serious issues that also demand our attention.

Terrorists are just a replacement for the USSR

[Secrity]

US politicians lost their boogey man when the Iron Curtain crumbled. They have found that terrorists make a dandy substitute.

The view from outside

[davecb]

From Canada, and certainly from publiations from Britain and Europe, it certainly appears that the terrorists have terrified the "United States".

That doesn't necessarily mean my american cousins, but it certainly does mean the government and press...

I fear more than the terrorist are laughing: friends and enemies both have lost respect for the US. Not a good thing.

--dave

Re:Repeat often

[Hijacked Public]

I fly a lot, mostly inside the US but often internationally.

Despite flying a lot I am not at all afraid. Not in flight and not on the ground. Not of terrorism anyway, what I'm actually most afraid of is that I'll slip up when packing, which I sometimes have to do in a hurry, and a screener will find a prohibited item in my bag. My face would be plastered all over the news alongside stories of my other transgressions and depravities. I read hacker websites under an assumed named that mentions hijacking. I eat at asian restaurants a lot. An interview of some guy who once met me at a party will reveal that I offered him an illegal cigar imported from a communist dictatorship.

Or even worse, a fellow passenger will get the idea that I'm going to do something bad and I'll end up with a fat guy sitting on me for the duration of our F16 escorted rerouting. I'll be fired the next day because my company doesn't support terrorism and wants to issue a swift response. A few weeks later it will be revealed that I was just trying to stifle a yawn rather than upchuck a previously ingested explosive device, which was proposed as one possible way terrorists would try to kill us. But they don't hold press conferences for yawn stifling.

Patriotism

[Loundry]

Anyone who is cited or charged for voiceing his or her belives in a nonviolent fashion is a bigger patriot than all those who drive around with a "Support our troops" sticker irregardles of the belives.

Forgive me if I seem obtuse, but what is so patriotic about voicing an opinion? I thought that patriotism was definined by a love and support of one's country/culture. If an opinion could conceivably be a contempt and disdain for one's country/culture (which many people certainly display), then how can that still be considered "patriotic"? I'm sorry, but I don't see the same sacred value is "voiceing his or her believes" that you do.

What if someone voiced the opinion that blacks were "mud people"? Would that person be a bigger patriot than the one who drives around with a "support our troops" sticker?

As for being afraid I agree with you - though much younger, I thank god that I do not live in America.

I don't believe in gods, but I am glad that I, a gay man, live in America opposed to living in Europe. The editor of the gay newspaper where I live (in the ultra-conservative, racist, gay-bashing South) was recently gay-bashed. No, he was NOT gay-bashed by Christian Republicans in Cobb County, Georgia. He was gay bashed by muslims in tolerant, progressive Amsterdam.

Bruce Bawer was a gay man who lived in the United States and decided to move to more tolerant, progressive Europe to escape from Christian Fundamentalists. What he found was that Europe has its own Fundamentalists, yet they are Muslims and they are worse in every way than America's Fundamentalists. He wrote a book about it called While Europe Slept. You can find out about it at http://www.brucebawer.com/. Is it safe to be gay in Europe? In many places, the answer has become not "no", but "hell no", and that is due largely to the influence of muslims who resoundingly believe that gay people are worthy of death.

While I do not support anything Bush has done (except for the tax cuts -- he's even waging the "war on terror" with a deliberately militant blind eye to the reality of jihad and Islam), I fear that the Europe that I know and love is going to be turned into an utter craphole by the regressive, anti-liberal, and fundamentliast muslim colonists who live there and are tolerated under the hideous canard of "multiculturalism". And I feel this is happening because far too many Europeans feel disdain and contempt for their own country/culture. "If Shari'a rules Europe, then who cares? Europe doesn't have a culture worth preserving anyway." I soundly disagree with that assessment, and I hope that more Europeans may find their sense of patriotism before muslims do to the beloved Mont Saint Michel what they did to the Buddhas of Bamiyan.

You are talking about 20% of the terrorist

[aepervius]

I am not saying your post is false, but you forget a lot of terrorist : the intern one like mc veigh, IRA, separatist corse, separatist bask, tchecheyn (some of them at least have used arguably terrorist way, remmember the russian school), red army faction for the older one of us, etc...etc...

All those could not care less shit about "islam", "US support to Israel" and a few of your other points.

What I want to say is that because in the last 5 years the US was only attacked once by some ismlamist, you forget that terrorism is a world wide problem and people using islam as a pretext for terrorism is only a part of it. By ignoring this fact you weaken a rethoric which would otherwise stand of its own.

It's called fear mongering

[Electric Eye]

And I hope the voters teach these low-life scumbags a lesson in November. It disgusts me every time I hear some liar like Dick Cheney saying if we pull out of Iraq, we're going to find terrorists in our supermarkets.

Re:I'm glad you hate the US so much

[Hijacked Public]

Mostly by virtue of their having existed longer.

You of course realize that that was general commentary on how humanity tends to settle differences of opinion. The 'founding fathers' part just fit the 'true blue' of the original I replied to.

For the thick: Change a few of the nouns around and you'll describe nearly every nation on earth, matters of scale aside.

Dropping bombs

[DeadCatX2]

But when given a choice between an asshole dropping bombs and an asshole banging an intern and not doing much of anything else, I'd rather have the latter.

I agree wholeheartedly.

Shoot pool, not people. Drop pants, not bombs. Make love, not war.

live free or die!

[TheGratefulNet]

again, I have to state the NH state motto (its a whole lot more serious and relevant than, say, idaho who has 'famous potatos!' as their license plate motto) ;)

we americans have lost the VALUE of freedom. freedom USED to be worth dying for. that's the heart of the NH motto and also to the heart of what made america the SYMBOL of freedom across the world.

now, we are cowards who are afraid of our own shadows. and liquid substances.

we are also afraid of cameras! I am a photographer and I follow all the new 'restrictions' that the figures of authority have (decided on their own) to place on us. no more taking pictures of bridges or trains or buildings. "you could give info to the terrorists" is their reply. tell me - what can my photo give that google-earth doesn't already give?

I just don't accept the fact that taking pictures on public property (which is STILL technically legal) is 'helping the other side'.

anyway, it has to be said - a life lived in fear is no life at all. its NOT what america used to stand for.

there have always been risks in everything you do. you could get hit by a car if you cross the road. if the republicans had their way, they'd have road.nannies at every intersection "to keep us all super-safe". how much invasion in our lives do we need for the government to be a life.nanny for us all? can't we just assume the world is a very dangerous place (always has been!) and just deal with that as a fact of the modern world?

Winning Strategy

[Shihar]

People were really pissed off about the twin towers because of the symbolism, not the loss of life. I am not saying that Americans don't care about loss of life, just that the fact that 5000 people died isn't enough to really send them into a rage. If you were to chart American deaths per year, the year of 9/11 wouldn't even blip. 5000 deaths is a drop in the bucket next to more mundane things like heart attacks and cancer. So, the issue wasn't loss of life. It wasn't even financial. Sure, the twin towers held a lot of financial 'stuff', but most of it had backups and in the grand scheme of things it was just a financial pinprick against the titan that is the US economy.

What it really boiled down to was symbolism. The symbolism of 9/11 for most Americans was that they knocked down two ugly yet famous buildings. It wasn't really the buildings, it was more that the attack was very visible and successful that really sent Americans into a rage. As the world saw, once poke the bear enough to wake it up, it tends to go on a tearing rampage looking for a head to rip off.

Now, if the knocking over the twin towers can provoke the toppling of two nations, I would REALLY hate to see what knocking over t he Statue of Liberty would do. You need to remember that what sends Americans into a rage is the symbolism, not the real loss of life. Knocking over the Statue of Liberty would be the absolute most potent target you could possibly hit. If you flew a plane into the White House and killed the president, you would have an enraged America on your hands, but a sizable minority wouldn't really be all that pissed because they either dislike government (far right) or dislike the man in the house (far left). Knocking over Statue of Liberty on the other hand is attacking a symbol that has its own special positive meaning to everyone. You could effectively unite the Americans into a collective rage that would make 9/11 look like pocket change. Nations would fall.

Now you need to ask yourself why you might want to do this. This is the heart of terrorists' question. What is the point of terrorism? If the point is vengeance or pseudo-religious ritualistic suicide (i.e. it has no rational goal), then the consequences of such an attack probably are not a big deal. If on the other hand your attack is trying to achieve a political goal, then the next question is "what goal".

If the goal is to make the Americans surrender and leave the Islamic world alone, knocking out the Statue of Liberty or any other non-military target is a complete waste of time and utterly counterproductive. The American response will almost assuredly be the exact opposite of what you want. The Spanish might have seen the terrorist attack against them as punishment and seek to change their behavior by pulling out of Iraq to avoid future pain, but the Americans will almost assuredly do the opposite regardless of the party controlling the government. The more devastating the symbolism of the attack, the more violent the response. If you want to make the Americans leave some place, you are far better off to achieve a steady attrition of their soldiers stationed in a foreign land. The loss of American soldiers can make the Americans want to leave a place, but attacks upon their homeland are far more likely to achieve the exact opposite response.

So why attack such symbolic targets instead of military targets that might actually break the American will to continue fighting? Why reinvigorate and intensify the American will to lash out and fight? The reason is simple. If you get the Americans to lash out, they might very well lash out in a way that benefits you. The Americans can easily destroy any non-nuclear government that they please, but as they have shown with Iraq and Afghanistan, they are far less effective at setting up a stable replacement government. If your goal is to make more radical Islamist, provoking the Americans might be the exactly right thing to do. The Americans can stomp out existing Islamist hosti

Yes. Let's talk Pearl Harbor

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

>new Pearl Harbor.

In 1941 our national leader was someone who had already declared that the only thing we had to fear was fear itself. His message was not to be afraid and turn over our lives to him, his message was to enlist, to build Liberty ships, and to conserve gasoline.

We won that war, fighting suicide bombers (kamikazes) who had an entire nation behind them, in three years and eight months. We turned military victories into stable, free, and friendly societies. That's what Americans can do when you appeal to their courage and resolve instead of preying on their fears.

A war on freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

In George Bush's first speech following the 9/11 attacks, he explained the attacks not as a war against democracy, a war against the US, or a war against The American Way, but as a war on freedom.

The September 11 attacks spread fear. But they did nothing to restrict our freedom. Who has worked more effectively to restrict or remove freedom within the US, Bin Laden, or our Politicians acting in reaction to Bin Laden? If the intent of those attacks was to remove our freedom, then our own politicians are inadvertently allied to Osama Bin Laden in their goals. What no terrorist could ever accomplish alone, removing the freedom central to our way of life, they have effectively made the politicians do for them by attacking us.

Re:How Is This News For Nerds??!!!!!!

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

>1984 crops up in discussions a lot. That's because a lot of people on these boards have actually read the book.

"Animal Farm" sometimes seems more apropos. The real villains weren't the pigs, the ones who brought that society down were the sheep. What's the difference between "Four legs good, two legs baaad" and "Either you're with us or you're with the terrorists"?

there is no rock

[DarrylKegger]

"If you focus on the corruption of US politics to the exclusion of that real threat, you're ignoring the rock "

what threat from the actions of terrorists?? there is no real threat.

I dont have the exact statistics at hand but the chances of you or anyone else suffering from the actions of 'terrorists' are vanishingly small. You know this and I know this, ie more chance of dying driving to work in the morning,etc.

Al qaeda is nothing in the scheme of real threats that you face in your day to day life. People only believe that there is a threat becos there has been systemic mass media fear-mongering.

"Saying that the main objective of this fight is to not get scared is like saying that if you have to fight a grizzly bear, the only thing to worry about is not getting eaten. Not panicking is a great idea, but you might want to also figure out how to avoid getting eaten."

Before the events of september 11 there were perfectly adequate governmental methods to "avoid getting eaten". The only thing that changed was that Bush/Cheney/Rove et al chose to ignore the advice given to them by the people/organisations who handle these threats, ie the intelligence agencies.

So in conclusion: your dichotomy is false and the problem really does lie with Bush/Cheney et al and the corporate media.

Re:there is no rock

[DarrylKegger]

You are comparing the lead-up to World War Two with the current situation.

World War two was initially between nation states of roughly equal size and power.

Global Terrorism is the conflict between small dispersed groups of poorly equipped Islamists and the world's SUPER power. Clearly this is absurd.

Ok you say, at the moment the threat is small but it is growing (you have evidence of this??) and that if we dont stomp it out it'll rise up and destroy us just when our backs are turned.

Again, absurd. You think for a second the US government would actually allow a real threat to endanger it?? Iran is a nation state run by religious fundamentalists and even the smallest attempt by them to build even the pre-cursors to serious weapons has been smacked down. (Ignore the fact that perhaps they may actually be pursuing nuclear generated electricity for their economy)

You can't seriously think for a second that if Iran actually developed 'Weapons of Mass Destruction' that this would be tolerated by the U.S?

And this is precisely the sort of centralised capabilities that Al Qaeda etc would need to become an actual real threat to the United States. That Al Qaeda is decentralised is the only thing in its favour. Once it gives that up it becomes a nice, easily picked off, centralised target.

You seem to be forgetting the slew of lies fed to the public about 'Weapons of Mass Destruction' in order to invade the 'great threat' of Iraq.

That is direct evidence of G.W/Cheney/Rove creating a completely fabricated threat (Saddam) in order to pursue their illegitimate goals and you dont even have a plausible argument as to how your belief in the 'potential' threat of radical islam could get to the point where it could pose a legitimate threat let-alone evidence that it currently is a threat. Oh and as for your 'they can just cut off the oil' argument....um what do you think one of the benefits (or potentially the main purpose) of invading Iraq was???

I note also that you failed to counter my argument that...

"Before the events of september 11 there were perfectly adequate governmental methods to "avoid getting eaten". The only thing that changed was that Bush/Cheney/Rove et al chose to ignore the advice given to them by the people/organisations who handle these threats, ie the intelligence agencies.

and you can't counter it because it is fact. The kind of threat that groups like Al Qaeda pose has not changed significantly since the 1980's and there is no evidence that the measures that were in place and used by the intelligence agencies in the 20 years preceding 9/11 were inadequate then or now. The extent to which the PATRIOT act erodes rights would have been completely unjustifiable except in a climate of manufactured fear.

Speaking of the 'patriot' act, I can't help but feel that you in some deep way buy into the jingoism of the Hawks; a feeling that is to some extent justified considering the way in which you bandy about the term 'extremist' in response to my own and other slashdotter's questioning of your logic.